KYIV: The office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called Saturday for a lower price cap on Russian oil than the one agreed to by Ukraine's Western supporters, while Russian authorities called the US$60-per-barrel cap harmful to free, stable markets.price ceiling set by the European UnionThe cap is set to take effect Monday, along with an EU embargo on Russian oil shipped by sea.
The Russian Embassy in Washington insisted that Russian oil"will continue to be in demand" and criticised the price limit as “reshaping the basic principles of the functioning of free markets”. The price cap aims to put an economic squeeze on Russia and further crimp its ability to finance a war that has killed an untold number of civilians and fighters, driven millions of Ukrainians from their homes and weighed on the world economy for more than nine months.
According to the UK Defence Ministry, Russian forces “continue to invest a large element of their overall military effort and firepower” around the small Donetsk city of Bakhmut, which they have spent weeks trying to capture., Governor Yaroslav Yanushkevich said evacuations of civilians stuck in Russian-held territory across the Dnieper River would resume temporarily.